Trauma-Responsive Practice
Interns build an understanding of how trauma, family history, systems involvement, and community conditions affect children, caregivers, and professionals.
Workforce Development
Child welfare is community welfare.
Preparing future child welfare professionals through trauma-responsive, community-engaged field education.
Field education in practice
Connecting academic learning with child welfare practice
The Family Resource & Training Center Internship Program offers students from multiple colleges and degree pathways a comprehensive, trauma-responsive learning experience spanning the continuum of child welfare practice.
Grounded in the belief that child welfare is community welfare, the program introduces interns to the complex, multidisciplinary systems that shape the lives of children and families. Students explore how public agencies, private organizations, courts, schools, behavioral health providers, law enforcement, and community partners work together to support child and family well-being.
Students integrate academic coursework with applied practice while developing an understanding of trauma, generational patterns, substance use, socioeconomic factors, community needs, and the statewide structures that influence child welfare services.
Our approach
Preparing thoughtful, capable, and sustainable professionals
The internship experience combines systems-based learning, reflective supervision, and applied projects that help students develop practical competencies across diverse areas of child welfare practice.
Systems-Based Learning
Students examine child welfare at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels while learning how agencies and community systems coordinate services and make decisions.
Professional Sustainability
Reflective practice, professional identity development, and early self-care planning help students prepare for ethical and sustainable careers in complex service systems.
Applied learning
What students may experience
Internship activities are shaped by each student's academic requirements, learning goals, interests, and available program opportunities.
- Foster parent recruitment and retention initiatives
- Community engagement and statewide events
- Training sessions and workforce development activities
- Curriculum, educational material, and project development
- Program evaluation and reflective practice
- Multidisciplinary communication and collaboration
- Child welfare policy and statewide system structures
- Observational and structured shadowing opportunities
Individualized learning
Projects with purpose
Each intern completes an individualized project aligned with their academic goals and interests. Previous projects demonstrate how students can transform learning into practical resources and community-responsive initiatives.
Development and implementation of digital communication training and a support group for foster parents and teens
Creation of an Independent Living Toolkit for youth in care
A post-adoption networking and support event developed through a community needs assessment
An equine-assisted foster care retention event for children
Student support
Competency-based supervision
FRTC program coordinators collaborate with university faculty to support academic requirements, university competencies, and individualized student learning contracts.
- Individualized learning goals and project planning
- Reflective supervision and strengths-based development
- Ethical and trauma-responsive professional practice
- Personal and professional identity development
- Marketable competencies across multiple areas of practice
Guidance and mentorship
Meet the Agency Field Instructors
Students are supported by experienced professionals who bring expertise in clinical practice, child welfare systems, workforce development, supervision, and community engagement.
Rachael Chappell, LCSW, Ed.S.
Agency Field Instructor and FRTC Program Coordinator
Rachael supports BSW and MSW students in developing trauma-responsive, strengths-based, and community-engaged social work practice. Her experience includes clinical practice, curriculum development, statewide training, program evaluation, motivational interviewing, and child welfare systems work.
Robert “Rob” Braniff, LMSW
Agency Field Instructor
Rob supports bachelor's- and master's-level social work students completing practicum placements. He brings more than three decades of public service experience, including leadership in child welfare, law enforcement, supervision, training, and multidisciplinary collaboration.
Supporting strong field education partnerships
FRTC works with university faculty and field education programs to align student placements with academic competencies, learning contracts, supervision requirements, and meaningful applied experiences.
Expanding pathways into child welfare careers
FRTC is exploring expanded university partnerships and future funded internship pathways designed to increase access, strengthen professional readiness, and contribute to long-term child welfare workforce sustainability.
Interested in internship or student employment opportunities?
Explore current intern and student employment opportunities through Handshake, or contact Rachael Chappell for more information about placements, academic requirements, and university partnerships.